When it comes to mobility, reliable coding can save lives. Safety-critical coding plays a vital role in today’s automotive industry, which has made Rust a very popular contender within the sector. Rust serves as a general-purpose programming language capable of delivering secure and high-performance results. Its strict compile-time checker catches bugs as coders write, eliminating errors that can often lead to major system vulnerabilities.
As the ground vehicle software sector continues to advance, Rust plays a vital role in enabling many experts to craft safe, reliable vehicle systems. Although this new language has been in use since 2015, a consensus-driven set of best practices had yet to exist until most recently.
The SAE Functional Safety Committee developed SAE JA1020™ – Safety and Cybersecurity Recommendations for the Use of the Rust Language in Critical Systems to provide an overview of coding guidelines to craft efficient and secure programs using the Rust language. This recommended practice (RP) can accompany preexisting cybersecurity guidelines, allowing it to aid a variety of organizations and project types.
In fact, JA1020 contains the JA title due to its service as both an automotive and aerospace RP. The Functional Safety Committee developed it in close collaboration with the Radio Technical Commission for Aeronautics to account for its use across all sectors of advanced mobility.
The establishment of JA1020 as an RP may lead to further documentation in the future. As industry professionals engage with Rust-based coding, informed by JA1020’s initial content, specifications are likely to arise. When this does, we can rely on the experts within the Functional Safety Committee to provide the industry with essential guidance.
JA1020 – Safety and Cybersecurity Recommendations for the Use of the Rust Language in Critical Systems is now available.
Originally published by SAE International. View on sae.org